Originally Posted by mjustice66 (Post 1551824)

Unfortunately, that wont work. I want something that I can run at competition (without wifi). Do you have any other suggestions?

Originally Posted by mjustice66 (Post 1551824)

Unfortunately, that wont work. I want something that I can run at competition (without wifi). Do you have any other suggestions?

Originally Posted by evanperryg (Post 1551882)

GearScout can be used without a mobile data connection. 6 people with android phones, and the zip file I posted on CD-media recently, and you're on your way.

Originally Posted by JustinCAD (Post 1552132)

Our scouting team this year is trying something new - Google Docs.

In the past we have used pencil & paper, which tends to be tedious over time. Once we collected data with the paper, a scouter would continuously type all of the data into an excel sheet. The system wasn't as efficient as we hoped.

This year, I realized that Google Docs could help us with this problem. We made an Google Sheet for each team that was going to be at our competition, and made a template to fill out for each team.

Due to it's feature of auto-updating, Google Docs is internet dependent. Most (not all) venues have an accessible Wi-Fi network. If no network is available, scouters can download the Google Docs app, and just work off of mobile data. I did a count on how many team members would be able to work on their phones for scouting, and about two-thirds of the team are able to.

I have not yet used this at a competition, so we have yet to see if it works well!

Originally Posted by Boltman (Post 1552152)

In quals its better for your team to take care of business than overly scout
you win by outscoring and earning a breaching point (maybe scaling)... so scouting during quals has little effect on outcomes IMO in this game as everyone will be playing for max scores...sure its good to know what defenses teams cannot cross but that's about it apart from expecting a defensive bot. Throw out all other stats and take notes on team tendencies (weaknesses/strengths) and how fast they score. (cycle times)

Take my advice to simplify your scouting .... figure out what your team does most efficiently by watching them by match 4..then that's your "thing" then find (20-24) other bots to compliment what you do and add what you cannot do. Also look for re-purposed defenders and if you cheesecake bots those that can be ...also Reliability and consistency are huge this year, that is what wins regional.

So as you are scouting in qualifications.... look for bots that do what you "don't do best and most efficiently/reliably " and build a list 20-24 deep. In 2015 we started this approach..we just took down alliance #1 as alliance #8 in two games (That never happens). It works. Only reason we did not win was our mechanical issues with boulder getting stuck in SF. Won't happen in CV we have a solution.

If you can customize your alliance buy finding two other perfectly matched bots your chances go way up to go to St Louis.

I only use stats to verify I did not miss any...I only found four that I reevaluated the next day.... 1/2 of the field will not be playing in eliminations so over scouting half the bots is noise you don't need..eyes on bots is the way to go. It works.

I had our alliance..we had a real good strong one as alliance #8. Had not been for mechanical issues I am certain we would have been in Finals as #8 because we had a great alliance and a good plan.

Now that my team scouted SD ..we can simplify for CV we now know what to find (and we know ourselves).

Remember numbers do not show how a team really plays nor how consistent they are or reliable...its a fatal flaw to numbers scouting in a game year like this.

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis (Post 1552059)

We use a scouting spreadsheet that utilizes macros pretty heavily.

...

Anyways, with the reliance on macros and more advanced excel functions like custom lists, it can be difficult to adapt something like that to a different set of data. If you're comfortable trying, let me know and I can send over one I have for you to work on!

Originally Posted by Captain_Kirch (Post 1552462)

If you want something easier I suggest using pivot tables. Tableau is pretty simple it would replace that second sheet you mentioned.

Originally Posted by Boltman (Post 1551973)

Personally would not go with "stats" they can be very misleading..

Originally Posted by jojoguy10 (Post 1552114)

I'm really liking gear scout, but I can get it to save the data. It says that "team, match, regional, or your team number is missing." I was trying to test it with the Auburn Mountainview District. That regional code was WAAMV, right?

Originally Posted by evanperryg (Post 1552521)

Go up to the options menu by hitting the menu button in the top right corner. In there, you need to set your team number, your name, the official FIRST event code for the event you're scouting, and your preferred save method. I'll talk to the software devs to see if we can make that toast (yes, the little pop-up things are actually ccalled toasts, even in the code) a little more clear. Best of luck, and I'm always happy to help you guys develop the best implementation of GearScout possible for your team!

Originally Posted by Boltman (Post 1551973)

Personally would not go with "stats" they can be very misleading..eyes on bots is way to go.

Originally Posted by jojoguy10 (Post 1552537)

Right, thanks, I get that, but I wanted to make sure I understood what you guys are looking for as in "Regional Code". Can you give me an example (that your code is looking for)?

Originally Posted by evanperryg (Post 1552540)

Qualitative observation comes with inherent bias, and it's extremely noticeable from qualitative scouter to qualitative scouter. I've got one who's been doing it for 3 years now and I'm pretty sure half his notes say "don't pick" somewhere inside them, while I have other scouters that sympathize with a robot that hasn't moved for most of an event. (Though after Waterford, I guess the notion that a dead robot is a bad robot no longer applies) No type of data can be utilized as effectively as possible without the other types. Pit data, match stats, and qualitative observations are all important factors in making strong picks and making strong strategies.

You don't. You might think you do, but you don't. If 4 years and over 120 matches at the helm (like the medieval reference?) of the 2338 scouting team has told me anything, it's that scouters will never know everything an astute drive team will know. Even if they aren't willing to admit it, that drive team knows each and every thing that could possibly go wrong with their machine, each angle that, when pushed, will easily throw their robot out of position, exactly how tall and how close a blocker needs to be to shut them down. Everything. Details that could never conceivably be seen by a scouter, because they are details that couldn't be seen unless a one-in-a-million situation occurrs in which that weakness is exposed.

Sounds like either those scouts are poorly trained, or they don't have an effective, ergonomic scouting system. After having problems with data accuracy in 2014, we switched to our current system and have found great success with it. If your data is clearly wrong, consider redesigning your entry method.

Go on TBA, and find the 4 or 5 character code next to the name of the event. For example, the Midwest Regional is "ILCH" and FiM Waterford was "MIWAT." I'll be honest, we don't do any data validation on the code you put in there, besides the character count. However, keep in mind that once we release the publicly-available support for database queries, you'll need to enter whatever code you used in order to get your data, so I'd strongly suggest making sure all of your scouters use the same code.

Originally Posted by choltz (Post 1572166)

It sounds like quite a few teams rely on what I would call qualitative scouting rather than quantitative data. IMO qualitative will lose every time to quantitative because qualitative is subjective at best and tends to reflect the scouters' beliefs of a team based on: past years, team size, rookie status, robot look etc.

Similar to the plot of moneyball, if your numbers accurately measure what you want to know, say percentage high goal accuracy, then they will be much more accurate at finding trends in the 60+ teams you have to simultaneously watch playing for two days straight. At least compared to the opinions of a small group of experienced team members.